The present invention relates to a new method for processing thermoplastic materials and the products thereby produced.
In U.S. Pat. No. 4,855,326, issued Aug. 8, 1989, various substances having pharmacological properties were combined with a sugar and spun into fibers to produce a readily water-soluble product. The various examples enumerated in the patent all involved the use of water-soluble medicaments and were directed to enhancing the solubility rate of the different substances. The patent describes methods for combining a medicament with any one or more of the water-soluble melt spinnable sugars and spinning the combination to produce a readily soluble floss form of the medicament. The '326 patent also discloses the use of polyvinylpyrrolidone dissolved in isopropyl alcohol combined as an adhesion promoter with granular sugar and a medicament. The combination was melt spun. The polymer, however, was present as a liquid and was used only as an additive. The disclosure of the '326 patent is incorporated herein by reference.
In U.S. Pat. No. 5,011,532, issued Apr. 30, 1991, the disclosure deals with oleaginous substances such as vegetable oil, baby oil, margarine, lanolin, cocoa butter, and the like, and how their lack of affinity for water is altered by mixing the oleaginous substance with sugar and melt spinning the mixture in a cotton candy spinning machine or the equivalent. As so modified the products disperse in water forming a colloidal or pseudo-colloidal dispersion. Such modification enabled such widely disparate procedures as: (a) incorporating shortening oil in a premixed cake mix containing flour but no egg to which water is added to produce a batter: and (b) producing a confection or medicated lozenge by dehydrating the dispersion and allowing the melted residue to solidify. The aforementioned application discloses that any oleaginous substance that can be mixed with a melt-spinnable sugar, when spun in a cotton candy spinning machine, produces a product which, when added to water or has water added to it, forms a uniform dispersion having all the appearances of a colloidal dispersion. In an example of the '532 patent, polyethylene glycol, mol. wt. 400, was combined with sucrose and subjected to melt spinning. However, the polymer was in liquid form and was present only as an additive. The disclosure of the '532 patent is incorporated herein by reference.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,496,592 to Kuwahara, et al. discloses a process for producing chewing gum which includes spinning gum base and sugar or candy in an ordinary candy floss making machine. The gum base used by Kuwahara, et al. can be natural or synthetic gum base prepared by a conventional method with other required ingredients. The sugar (or candy) ingredient is incorporated in an amount of from 66% to 83% by weight of the feedstock.
Other disclosures which relate to spinning substances with one or more sugars are found in U.S. Pat. No. 4,873,085 issued Oct. 10, 1989, U.S. Pat. No. 5,034,421 issued Jul. 23, 1991, U.S. Pat. No. 5,028,632 issued Jul. 2, 1991, and U.S. Pat. No. 4,997,856 issued Mar. 5, 1991. The products described in the above-mentioned patents and applications are all produced by processing in a cotton candy machine. Illustrative of a cotton candy machine is the Econo Floss Model 3017 manufactured by Gold Medal Products Co. of Cincinnati, Ohio. The process described in the above-identified disclosures involve the use of sugar(s) as a feedstock material which is spun to produce a material such as a floss, fibre, etc. Accordingly, the technology described in the above-identified disclosures relies on the physical characteristics of sugar.
In the parent of the present application, application Ser. No. 07/702,068, the U.S. Patent Office has cited other disclosures for their showing of melt-spinning polymers. U.S. Pat. No. 4,335,232 to Irwin was cited as disclosing melt-spinnable aromatic copolyesters, and U.S. Pat. No. 4,072,658 to Okamoto, et al. was cited for its disclosure of melt spinning polystyrene. However, the "melt-spinning" techniques referred to in the Irwin '232 and the Okamoto, et al. '658 disclosures are conventional "melt-spinning" techniques wherein the feedstock is subjected to sustained heat treatment.
Conventional, melt spinning techniques, such as those referred to by Irwin and Okamoto, et al., are described in F. Billmeyer Jr., Text Book of Polymer Science, 518-522 (Wiley International Edition, 2d). Spinning processes require melting the polymer or dissolving the polymer in solution (an exception is the aqueous dispersion of a polymer, such as polytetrafluoroethylene, followed by removal of the liquid and sintering). In the melt spinning procedure, molten polymer is pumped at a constant rate under high pressure through a plate having a number of small holes, which is referred to as a spinnaret. Polymer is melted, usually by contacting it with a hot grid or by use of an extrusion-type screw, and passed directly to a meter pump. Filaments emerge from the spinnaret into air where it begins to cool. As the fibers solidify, they are brought together and drawn to orient the fibers. In both dry spinning and wet spinning procedures, the polymer or polymer derivative is put into solution prior to forming the fiber.
The procedures disclosed in the prior art do not enable the artisan to alter a thermoplastic material quickly and efficiently to provide unique characteristics useful in a wide variety of applications. It is, therefore, a purpose of the present invention to provide a completely new method of processing thermoplastic material for a vast number of uses.